A birther debate, with a twist, hits Colorado

Abdul Hassan was not born in the United States. He will tell you he was not born in the United States. There is no controversy about whether he meets the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that U.S. presidents must have been born in the United States.

In a lawsuit (PDF) filed this week in federal court in Denver, Hassan is challenging the denial of a spot on Colorado’s 2012 ballot. Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler denied Hassan, a New Yorker who has been running for president since 2008, a place on the ballot because Hassan was not born in the United States. Hassan was born in Guyana and has since become a United States citizen.

The U.S. Constitution requires U.S. presidents to be “natural-born citizens,” which is most commonly interpreted as requiring that presidents have been born in the U.S.. Hassan, who has filed similar lawsuits across the country, isn’t challenging the definition of natural-born citizen. Instead, he’s making a much more novel argument: That the entire constitutional eligibility provision is itself unconstitutional.

Hassan argues that equal-protection laws — which, among other things, bar discrimination against someone because of their national origin — trump the eligibility rules for president. He’s already lost on that argument in federal court in New York, a ruling he has appealed. The Federal Election Commission, though, has allowed him to file paperwork for his presidential run and said he must report contributions and expenditures.

“It is well settled that government laws or conduct that discriminate on the basis of national origin are presumed to be invalid,” Hassan writes in a brief to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, posted on his website.

“Because the natural born provision dilutes and partially destroys the citizenship of Hassan it is trumped and
abrogated by the Fourteenth Amendment,” he adds later in the brief.

Gessler has yet to file a reply to Hassan’s lawsuit. In the ballot-berth denial to Hassan — copied in Hassan’s complaint — the secretary of state’s office writes that it is responsible for ensuring only eligible candidates get on the ballot.

“To our knowledge,” the office wrote, “no court has held that any of the qualifications for the office of President as outlined in the U.S. Constitution are invalid.”

Natural born citizen does not mean born in the USA, if you go by what the US Supreme Court says. If you look at Minor v. Happersett, Perkins v. Elg, or any of several other cases the natural born citizen is a person born to parents who are both citizens of the USA. The place of birth can make you citizen (but not a natural born citizen).

McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, not “in” the USA. There is some legal wiggle room here except of course for Barack Obama even though he clearly was born in Hawaii that is not good enough for the baggers.

DeniseT

Interesting argument.
But saying something that was in the original constitution is unconstitutional is kind of bizarre.

@inessence – A person not born on US soil needs only ONE US citizen parent provided that parent meets the residency requirements.

Your “parents who are both citizens of the USA” is birther blather. See Wong Kim Ark.

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